Blocks And 3d Puzzles

It’s not uncommon for people to think of homeschooling families as those with a stay at home parent, most often the mother. However, this isn’t necessarily always the case. It is actually possible to work outside of the home and home school too.

However, many mothers feel as if they have to choose to either, home school and stay home or to work and send their kids to public schools. In fact, you may be one of these women. If you are considering homeschooling and currently have a job away from home, know that it’s possible to do both. Below are a few tips to help.

1. Change Your Perspective – The majority of those who think about homeschooling think that it has to work just like the public school system, as far as time is concerned. Many people feel that homeschooling will take all day and needs to be done during the morning to mid-afternoon, but this isn’t the case. In fact, you’ll be surprised to learn that homeschooling often takes less time than traditional schooling.

How? First of all, you don’t have to wait for children to arrive as they are already there and secondly, you aren’t going to be teaching large numbers of children – just your own. Therefore, homeschooling works much quicker than traditional education does. In fact, it can actually be done in under an hour each day!

2. Choose Your Curriculum Wisely – Not all homeschooling curriculum is hard to understand and complicated. Therefore, if you want to work outside the home and home school also, then you should look for curriculums that present information in an easy-to-understand way. For example, look for a curriculum that has short lessons that don’t take up a lot of time. Also, be willing to consider a curriculum that doesn’t teach “lessons.”

Part two of this article will be posted on June 6th – watch for it!

Got another minute?  Check out our giant cardboard building blocks.  These kids toy blocks will allow your children to play creatively and gain muscle strength.  Did you know that kids learn basic math skills when playing with building block toys?

As a concerned parent you will want to understand the importance of using quality materials as often as possible. While quality is more important than quantity, sometimes it does costs more. However, sometimes you can compromise quality, but there are other times in homeschooling where you can’t. Therefore, it’s important that you understand the times when quality is crucial and when it isn’t.

When cost is an issue you will find you have many resources to help cut the cost and still get quality materials. By making heavy use of the library, used book sales, borrowing, and common materials on hand, one can do an adequate job with minimum cost.

Packaged curricula and video courses come higher, up to several hundred dollars per child per year (this is still much cheaper than a private school), but do your research using the Internet and/or talking to other parents and homeschooling groups to help you locate quality yet less expensive materials.

Parents who have to purchase used materials or look for things online will spend more time and energy finding those items, but they might have a greater sense of accomplishment and be teaching their children how to manage their money well.

Educator’s Family Services puts on conferences and book fairs several times yearly at various locations. State homeschool support groups often sponsor book and curriculum fairs yearly in conjunction with conferences and workshops. These are open to the public (there is a cost) and are wonderful sources of teaching materials. Some local support groups operate libraries, too.

Of course, extras such as dance, art, martial arts, voice or instrument, public speaking, sports, horseback riding, or summer camp can add much more to the bill, but most parents would choose at least some of these for their children even if they were in a conventional school.

Often the cost of homeschooling can depend on a parent’s goals. If their goal is for their child to attend an Ivy League school when they graduate, then they will need to spend a lot more than someone who either doesn’t want to attend college or is able to earn their degree from a less prestigious university.

When you have decided on your books and other teaching materials remember to help keep learning fun for your toddlers by incorporating a few quality children’s toys to encourage creative and fun play.

Kids love role playing with tea sets.

Visit All I Can Imagine to explore all our other kids toys!

Giraffes are fascinating animals.  Owning plush stuffed toy animals such as our hand-sewn giraffe may be the only way your child can have a giraffe.

Our stuffed toy animals, jungle collection includes a pretty 18” safari toy and it has just arrived back I stock after a long absence.

Did you know the Giraffe is the tallest among all land living animals? The giraffe can be 16 to 18 feet tall and weigh up to 3,000 pounds. Females are generally slightly shorter and weigh less than the males do.

Both sexes have horns, although the horns of a female are smaller. Giraffes have spots covering their entire bodies, except their underbellies, with each giraffe having a unique pattern of spots. They have long, prehensile tongues that are impervious to the thorns of the acacia trees that they feed from and are distinctly blue-black to protect from sunburn.  They have long necks, which they use to browse the leaves of trees.

Giraffe perform a behavior called necking.  Necking duels occur when males fight.  Giraffe use their heads to strike a blow and they also use their necks to show affection toward another giraffe.  Giraffes are normally quiet animals.  They do not have only one distinct sound that they make.  They will, however, cough, whistle, bellow, moo, grunt, snort and hiss. Read more fun facts about this fascinating animal at Kids Konnect.

Remember to visit All I Can Imagine to see all our stuffed plush toys including our selection of stuffed bears.